


Besotted and Bewildered

by GothicPrincessWitch



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alcohol, Asexual Character, Asexual Hawke, F/M, First Kiss, Red Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 10:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13479843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothicPrincessWitch/pseuds/GothicPrincessWitch
Summary: Lorena Hawke does not understand romance or feelings or love or kissing or sex. None of that has ever been something she’s wanted in life. But now she finds herself falling for Sebastian Vael, and she wonders what it would be like to kiss him.





	Besotted and Bewildered

**Author's Note:**

> Lorena is my extremely red mage Hawke who has no social skills and who rivals everyone. She’s the same Hawke who appears in my fic Never Boring.

Lorena Hawke does not understand kissing.

The very act just seems so sloppy and messy and utterly undignified, not to mention overall pointless! What purpose could kissing possibly serve, save to ascertain the bad breath of one’s partner? It makes not a modicum of sense to Lorena.

She once asked Carver about it, years ago back in Lothering, when she’d caught him naked with that girl Peaches.

“Why are you doing that with her?” she’d said in genuine confusion, but Carver grew red-faced and refused to discuss it with her.

Kissing is like a foreign custom to which Lorena has not been told the meaning, and watching couples exchange kisses makes her feel like even more of an outsider. She finds herself staring when Isabela and Fenris share kisses, when they snuggle up side by side during nights at the Hanged Man, laughing together, Isabela with a hitherto unseen softness to her and Fenris with a warm, relaxed, happy smile which Lorena would not have thought possible from him when they’d first met.

Lorena wonders why they enjoy it so much, why they enjoy being together so much. She wonders what it would feel like to have that.

Lorena has never been soft. She’s never had any interest in feelings or romance or sex. Either she’s never been inclined to feel interested, or she’s never been capable of it; Lorena isn’t certain which one it is, but the result is still the same. Romance has never been a part of her life and has never been something she’s wanted to be in her life.

Until now.

It’s strange and utterly perplexing and unexpected for her to feel this way, and yet somehow, for some unfathomable reason, she does.

She hadn’t thought much of Sebastian Vael when they’d first met. She’d understood his anger and need for revenge, and she’d respected him for it, but he’d never been foremost in her thoughts. Then he’d asked for her help, and she got to know him better, this maddeningly impetuous prince who’s so devoted to helping others and so torn as to what he should do.

So Lorena Hawke had pushed him. She’d pushed him toward his throne, toward his responsibilities to assume his birthright. She pushed him toward what she felt he was obligated to do. If he was so concerned about his duty to the Maker then she reminded him repeatedly that his duty to the Maker involves taking care of the people of Starkhaven.

But then it hits her, one day when they are at the Hightown Market and she overhears Sebastian inviting Fenris to come with him to Starkhaven, that Sebastian claiming his rightful place on the throne means that he will leave Kirkwall for good, and when that happens, Lorena will be completely devastated. Kirkwall will feel empty without Sebastian, and her life will be empty without his kind smile. She’s realized that she does not want to be in this city if Sebastian is not also here.

And if that’s love, well then, apparently Lorena is in love with him.

And she cannot stop thinking about him! He haunts her thoughts at every waking hour! She thinks of him when she sees the holy symbol of Andraste upon her nightstand and when she says her prayers before bed. When she picks out what to wear in the morning, she wonders what Sebastian’s opinion would be. When she gets into a fight with bandits, she wishes he were fighting beside her. She constantly thinks about what he might be doing when he’s not with her.

She wonders if he ever thinks about her the way she thinks about him.

Lorena also wonders what it would be like to kiss him. That is what people in love are supposed to do, correct? (Along with other physical things Lorena feels dreadfully uncomfortable with.) When you’re in love, you mash your lips together and... somehow like it??

She doesn’t understand. She just doesn’t.

And she can’t go to Sebastian and admit to him that she wants to kiss him yet doesn’t know how, because then he will see her as the ignorant fool she is, and she cannot bear for him to think less of her.

Which is in itself ridiculous because Lorena has never before cared what anyone thinks of her! She’s blunt and aggressive and sometimes ruthless, and she never cares if she steps on anyone’s toes or hurts anyone’s feelings, for she prides herself on saying what must be said and doing what must be done. Yet the very notion of Sebastian having a poor opinion of her crushes Lorena.

The whole being in love thing is a senseless farce, and she hates it!

Knowing this, however, does not stop her from wanting him.

There’s only one thing that can be done about this: Lorena must learn how to kiss and how to ask him for a kiss, and then she can get over this romantic nonsense once and for all.

=====

Lorena goes to ask Carver for help. It’s a blow to her pride, of course, but her brother already has a poor enough opinion of her that it would be impossible for him to think worse of her.

Unsurprisingly, Carver is not happy to see her when she draws him away from the other Templars in the Gallows courtyard. He faces with a scowl that matches her own.

“What are you doing here? This is the Gallows!” Carver snaps. “And what the hell are you thinking bringing a bloody staff into the bloody Gallows?”

Lorena glances at the pole-arm slung over her shoulder. “It’s a halberd,” she responds icily.

“Like hell it is!”

“Carver, I have to talk to you. It’s important,” she insists, wincing at how needy she sounds. She takes a deep breath. “Do you remember that day in Lothering when I found you engaged in sexual activities with that girl?”

Carver turns several shades of scarlet. Agitated, he exclaims, “Maker’s balls, I am not having this conversation with you!”

“But wait—“

“Get out! And wear a sword next time you come here to humiliate me!”

=====

That was a total failure, true, but Lorena has not gotten to where she is today by giving up easily.

The Hanged Man is crowded and filthy, and Lorena dislikes coming here, but over by the bar is almost always the place to find Isabela. Lorena swallows, feeling very uneasy, and approaches her.

Isabela rolls her eyes when she sees Lorena. “What is it this time, Hawke? Are we saving orphans from a burning building or rescuing kittens from trees?”

She gestures to the bartender to bring Lorena a drink. Upon inspection, the glass is dirty, and Lorena nudges it away from her with a disgusted grimace, pointedly refusing to drink from it.

“I’m in need of an understanding of—“ Lorena flounders got words, “— the expression of physical affection. Kissing, in particular.”

Taken aback, Isabela glances at the glass of whiskey in her hand and then back at Hawke. “Are you asking me to kiss you?” she says in bewilderment. “Because I don’t think I’m drunk enough for that.”

“No!” Hawke hisses, her cheeks reddening in embarrassment. “I don’t know how kissing works, and I need you to explain it to me.”

First Isabela scoffs in surprise, and then she cackles with wicked glee. “Oh, this is glorious! Little Miss Stick Up Her Arse deigns to ask me for help. With kissing!”

Lorena blushes further and scowls. “Forget it,” she snaps and storms away.

“Hawke, wait, come back! I’m sorry for teasing,” Isabela calls after her.

Nothing is worth this kind of humiliation, and Lorena slams the Hanged Man’s door behind her.

=====

Fenris’s mansion is cleaner than the Hanged Man, although that’s admittedly a low standard to overcome, but at least the dishware is suitably clean when Fenris serves tea.

Lorena remembers the first time she had tea with Fenris. After a series of heated and vile arguments with her brother, mother, and uncle, she’d stormed off to cool down and ended up in Hightown, where she’d called upon Fenris on a whim. They didn’t get along well in those early days (although Lorena doesn’t really get along well with anyone, in all honestly), and it had been tense and awkward for them both.

The tea Fenris made was very odd, a jarring blend of spicy and sweet, and when Lorena inquired about it, he informed her that it was a Tevinter-style tea he’d uncovered in the mansion, that other teas never tasted quite right to him compared to this. Lorena couldn’t understand why Fenris would want or miss anything from the place where he’d been a slave, and she absolutely did not want anything from a place where mages keep people like Fenris as slaves, so she told him that the tea was despicable and a disgrace to all good tea.

Fenris had demurred at the time, but ever since he’s kept Fereldan teas on hand just for her. It’s a Fereldan tea he offers her presently, and the aroma feels so comforting and reminds her so very much of Lothering. If she were still in Lothering, she wouldn’t be in this besotted state. But then again, if she were back in Lothering, then she still wouldn’t have any friends to turn to for any kind of assistance.

Running her thumb along the gilded rim of the teacup, Lorena tries to summon the words to say. She decides to forcibly swallow her pride and speak bluntly. “I need help. I like someone. I like Sebastian quite a lot, and I want to— I need to be able to show him that, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to kiss him. Help me.”

“Why are you asking me?” says Fenris guardedly. He stirs a few sugar cubes into his own cup of tea and takes a sip.

“Because you’re close with him. You know what he likes,” says Lorena.

A soft chuckle escapes Fenris. “That’s not usually among our activities when we spend time together, I’m afraid.”

Lorena sighs. “Please,” she begs. “I’ve gone to everyone I could think of. I was even desperate enough to go to Carver, which was incredibly foolish of me now that I think about it. I don’t know why I thought he would help me. He hates me.”

Fenris sets his teacup down in its saucer and gives her an intense look. “Carver loves you,” he insists firmly, “even if he’s not very good at saying it. Truth be told, you’re not very good at hearing it when he does say it.”

Lorena scowls and flares at him. Fenris can be equally blunt as she.

“Well, if I’m your desperate last resort,” starts Fenris.

“It’s not like that,” Lorena cuts him off. “You’re the closest friend I have, and I don’t want you to judge me for being less than everyone else, for not having the experiences everyone else has, for not feeling or being as much as everyone else.”

Fenris gives her a mirthless smile. “With the life I’ve lived, it would be the height of hypocrisy to judge you for that,” he says wryly.

“I don’t want him to judge me either,” Lorena grumbles.

His smile softening, turning more genuine, Fenris says gently, “I doubt he will. Sebastian cares a great deal for you and holds you in the highest regard.”

These words fill Lorena’s chest with warmth and send a rush straight to her head. But then she pictures Sebastian — his handsome face, that charming smile, those brilliant eyes like the cloudless sky on a sunny summer day, his kindness and compassion, his genial demeanor — and her heart sinks.

“He shouldn’t,” she says. “He’s perfect, and I’m...” She gestures to herself. “Me.”

“And he loves you just as you are.”

Lorena bites her lip, for that sounds far too good to be true. She’s truculent and pugnacious and a bitch, as many people in Kirkwall have called her, who doesn’t understand how to love or how to let herself be loved.

But Sebastian still loves her anyway, and that’s powerful and meaningful.

So she knows now more than ever that she does have to find a way to show Sebastian how she feels about him.

Fortunately, Fenris does agree to explain to her how to kiss.

=====

Lorena’s heart is thundering within her chest as she walks up the steps to the Chantry cathedral and enters. Her mouth has gone dry, and her palms are sweating beneath her leather gloves.

She’s nervous as hell.

And there he is, lighting incense and looking as beautiful and as breathtakingly wonderful as an angel.

Sebastian Vael’s expression lights up when he sees her, his full lips curving into an elated smile, and he hurried over to her immediately.

“Hawke! It’s so good to see you,” he says warmly.

“Likewise,” Lorena responds, trying to force her mouth out of its usual frown and into a smile. Smiling feels very weird and stuff and unnatural, but Sebastian doesn’t appear to be unnerved by it (unlike the nearby Chanter Taletha, who squeaks in terror).

“I...” Lorena freezes. Maker’s breath, why is this so difficult? “I— I like you.”

Sebastian’s smile widens, and he looks happier than she’s ever seen him.

“I like you. Very much. And I would. Very much. Like. To kiss. You. If. That’s. Alright.” Lorena forces this sentence out through gritted teeth, hating how much effort it takes to say this, wincing at how each word sounds like it’s being dragged out of her.

“I would very much like to kiss you as well,” says Sebastian. “I can think of nothing I would enjoy more.”

“Oh. Well. Good,” is all Lorena can manage to reply, her face flaming. Her hands are trembling as Sebastian takes them in his.

“Is there something wrong?” he asks in that lovely understanding tone of his. How is he always so perfect and understand and patient with her?

Lorena lowers her gaze, although she can still feel Sebastian’s bright blue eyes staring at her, staring through her. “I’ve never done this before. I’ve never wanted this before,” she confesses. “I don’t know how this is supposed to go — any of it.”

She brings her eyes back to his and says, “But I do know how much I want to be with you.”

Sebastian’s hands move to caress her face. “I love you, Hawke, and I want to be with you more than anything. As for everything else, we’ll figure it out as we go.”

With a gasp, she brings her lips to his, and kissing him is nothing like she’d dreamed it would be and everything like she’d dreamed it would be all at the same time. Fenris’s instructions vanish from her mind, and she can’t remember what she’s supposed to do with her tongue, but it doesn’t matter because Sebastian loves her and is kissing her and she’s kissing him back. It’s strange and new and unfamiliar, but it feels right and good and blissful.

“I love you, Sebastian Vael,” Lorena Hawke whispers against his lips.


End file.
